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University Daily Kansan Friday, March 13, 1959
We Claim Responsibility
Two students, a Negro and a white, were sent to the University housing office last Friday. They asked for housing lists and received identical ones.
This was a check by The Daily Kansan, not an effort to re-open the issue. The student newspaper was pleased to report that students were receiving fair and equal treatment in obtaining housing lists.
In today's letters column a student attacks The Daily Kansan for resorting to techniques used by "secret police...in totalitarian and fascist states."
In February it came to the attention of The Daily Kansan that separate housing lists were being kept for Negro and white students. A check was made which showed that some administrative officials were unaware of the discrimination. When the matter was called to his attention, Laurence C. Woodruff, dean of students, said the practice would be stopped.
There was no suspicion or malicious intent in The Daily Kansan's check. The student newspaper was merely trying to fulfill its responsibility—acting as a check and balance between the student body and the administration.
Mr. Halstead calls this a violation of the right of freedom of the press. It was not.
Freedom of the press is the vital right of mankind—the unquestionable right to discuss whatever is not explicitly forbidden by law. Investigating the housing lists to assure students of fair treatment is not forbidden by any law.
It is an inalienable right for the student to check upon the administration as it is for the citizen to check upon his government. No democratic citizen would deny another that right.
There was no spying, no sneaking on the part of The Daily Kansan. A truly reliable check could not have been made had the students announced they were sent by the newspaper.
We do "publicly claim responsibility" for this act, which is part of The Daily Kansan's service to its University—to uphold the rights of its students and to see that the administration does likewise. Pat Swanson
Shocked by Lifters
Editor:
Perhaps I am just a senior, but the statements of Russell Taylor, Joe Stout and Edwin Weiskirch in The Daily Kansan Wednesday under the headline "Student Viewed as Skinny, Sallow, Weak and Has a Cold," sort of shocked me.
How does it happen that these three all-seeing freshmen are so wise about the habitat of the college student so early in their college career?
Their argument didn't hold much water after I gazed upon their representative picture of healthy specimens.
It seems that one still attached to mother's apron strings could spend his time and money more wisely on the fine opportunity for an education afforded him instead of accomplishing this fabulous muscle building feat. I'm sure that he will draw many followers to such a fine cause (it's an easy way out of studying).
They must be majoring in weight lifting, basket weaving and physical education to be amazed at the number of sleepless characters on this hill. I am sure nothing phenomenal was ever accomplished without a sacrifice of some sort.
I have spotted flares of ostentation here and there which is indicative of a certain immaturity.
I can not see how the student body can sit back and hear themselves called lazy, weak, and fat or skinny. (They can't seem to make up their minds as to which we are.)
Perhaps if there were a few weaker backs and stronger minds there would not be so many flunking freshmen.
James Karr
Lacygne senior
Kansan Blasted
Editor:
The University Daily Kansan has considerably lowered itself in my estimation by an act for which it publicly claims responsibility on page one of Monday's issue. According to what the Daily Kansan reported therein, it "sent a Negro and a white student to the housing office Friday."
Both students asked the housing secretary for a list of men's private housing. The secretary gave each student identical lists. I must emphasize here that it is not stated whether or not these students told the housing secretary that they were sent by the Daily Kansan. It
Allen · Lenny
appears evident that they did not tell her so.
What has happened to the Daily Kansan? Must it resort to such techniques as those used by secret police and other such agencies in totalitarian and fascist states, just in order to get a news item?
Is this check what you call freedom of the press? It seems to me rather an abuse of this freedom. What is wrong with us if we must use such techniques to spy upon the University's administration? Once Dean Woodruff has stated that there will be no separate lists of any sort maintained, isn't his word good enough? With his statement to this effect, the case should have been closed. Why is the Daily Kansan trying to reopen it?
I am glad that the results of the Daily Kansan's check were what they were, but I deplore the spying, sneaking, underhanded, faithless, and totally undemocratic manner in which the Daily Kansan obtained these results.
W. Douglas Halsted III
West Medway, Mass., graduate student
(See editorial "We Claim Responsibility")
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS BY BIBLIER
'WELL, THIS COLLEGE IS KNOWN FOR ITS VERY FRIENDLY, HELPFUL FACULTY.'
The Cell Block Seven has disappeared, along with $375 belonging to the KU pep clubs. We maintained all along they sounded like a dangerous outfit.
If that library book misplaced by Charlie Brown came from the Watson reserve section, he has plenty to worry about.
Short Ones
---
"We'll have a short quiz, in class Friday," the professor announced. "A real short one, don't worry. Better bring a couple of blue books."
. . .
Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
weekly, 1905, daily, Jan. 6, 1912
*Bob Farnsworth*
Telephone VIkng 3-2700
Festonte 711, news room
Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association
Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service.
420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.
News service: United Press International.
Maharashtra University at $450 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays,
and examination periods. Entered as second-class matter Sept. 17, 1810, at
the post office under act of March 3, 1879.
A11/an - Lan↑z
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Douglas Parker
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Feitz Business Manager
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Pat Swan and Martha Crosser, Co-
Editorial Editors; Robert Harwil,
Associate Editorial Editor.
By Alexandra Mason
BEAU BRUMMELL, HIS LIFE AND TIMES, by Carlo Maria Fran-zero. John Day, $4.50.
One character from the Regency period whose name is known to all is Beau Brummell. Besides this nickname, all that most people know about him is that he dressed very well indeed and had something to do with neckties. Mr. Franzero fills in the rest of the story.
George Bryan Brummell was born in 1778, the son of a monied, but undistinguished, civil servant, and the grandson of a valet. When he was fifteen he first met the then Prince of Wales (later Prince Regent and George IV) and charmed him into a promise of a commission in a royal regiment. This he took up a year later, and held for four years. When he was twenty he left the army and entered upon his true vocation, the life of a man of fashion.
Shortly he was king of fashion. If he disapproved of a fashion it died still-born. If he said a certain snuff was of poor quality no one bought a pinch. If he smiled on a mah, that man might consider himself made; but if he sneered the victim may as well go to the country and stay, for he was ruined.
He invented the starched cravat (a square yard of starched linen fold precisely beneath one's chin) and all men wore the starched cravat. He had buttoned and strapped bottoms put to his trouser legs and immediately knee breeches were dead, and no really fashionable man could possibly bend his knee for the tightness of his trousers.
His merciless tongue was feared throughout fashion's world, until he insulted the Prince Regent publicly once too often. Rapidly his star set. He fled to France to escape debtor's prison, lived improvidently on charity from his friends, failed miserably in a short appointment as consul at Caen, grew poorer, more improvident, more insulting, more foolish, and finally died quite mad and a pauper.
The tale of Brummell's life is amusing, anecdotal and trivial enough to afford forty-five minutes light reading, even in the rather clumsy and amateurish flashback style which the author has chosen to employ.
I feel, however, little inclined to agree that Brummell is "the most famous of Englishmen" or that "Never has society been in greater need of a new Brummell! Brummell would have saved our world from that sheer vulgarity which is called Democracy."
It is a shame that the price is set at $4.50. It might have sold for a quarter or even 35 cents, but now its only chance is the Marboro remainder list. I hope for the sake of Mr. Franzeno's pocket that his books on Nero, Cleopatra, and Pontius Pilate did better than this one will.
"Since Sputnik flew, Americans have been trying to find out what is wrong with American education and what to do with it. As often happens when we attack a national problem, much of our effort has degenerated into a search for scapegoats. What we often fail to appreciate, however, is how much our schools reflect the world around them.
Worth Repeating
"The partial answer to what's wrong can be found by a kind of mental looking-in-the-mirror. Here's a starter:
"Complaint: Johnny can't read. Question: Do any adults around your house show any enthusiasm for reading by being frequently seen with a book in their hands?
"Complaint: Johnny is a conformist, doesn't want to excel or be different from his schoolmates. Question: Has he been given any reason to believe his family thinks or acts differently from the Browns down the block?
"Complaint: Johnny isn't interested in science and math. Question: Is anybody at your house?
"This kind of mental exercise may improve more people than just Johnny."
Denver Post from the Reader's Digest, March, 1959.
***
"Down deep in our hearts we know how to cope with inflation, how to assure our security, how to overcome all the other dilemmas that beset us. We know that it requires self-discipline and the subordination of personal interest to the national interest. We know that it means universal self-sacrifice.
"Have we lost the strength of character to do this? Have we grown so apathetic that we will not rouse ourselves before some terrible tragedy overwhelms us? In time of peril, apathy is the unforgivable sin, the irredeemable error."
Bernard Baruch from the Reader's Digest, March, 1959.
***
"Said 'Boss' Kettering: 'Research is a high-hat word that scares a lot of people. It needn't. It is nothing but a state of mind—a friendly, welcoming attitude toward change. It is the problem-solving mind as contrasted with the let-well-enough-alone mind. It is the composer mind instead of the fiddler mind. It is the tomorrow mind instead of the yesterday mind.'"
—T. A. Boyd in "Professional Amateur, the Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering."